From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed May 1 13:04:36 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: Melissa R Herman Subject: FWD: NSF Social Sci Research Cuts To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU (socgrad network) Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 12:59:31 -0700 (PDT) From: gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu (Gary Chapman) Subject: NSF Social Science Funding Yesterday, on April 24th, the Republicans on the House Science Committee voted to eliminate the Social, Behaviorial, and Economic Research Division of the National Science Foundation. While this program has never been large within NSF -- the agency asked for $93 million for SBER in FY 1997 -- it has always played an important role in the funding of social science research. SBER supports research in anthropology, psychology, geography, cognitive science, linguistics, the philosophy of science, economics, political science, and science and technology studies. The Division is home to several major programs that have no analog in other government agencies, such as the Ethics and Values Studies Program, the Human Capital Initiative, and a public policy program which helps young scientists and engineers become contributors to science and technology policy. The National Science Board, the body that oversees NSF (and whose vice chair is UT Vice President Marye Anne Fox) issued a strong defense of NSF funding for social science last year. However, House Science Committee Chairman Robert Walker convinced his Republican colleagues on the committee that social science research is "not real science," as he put it in a speech a year ago, and thus the vote for the elimination of SBER. It may be appropriate for social scientists to consider writing members of Congress or the President to express their opinions about this action on the part of the Science Committee. Gary Chapman Director The 21st Century Project LBJ School of Public Affairs Drawer Y, University Station University of Texas Austin, TX 78713 (512) 471-8326 Electronic mail: gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/21cp/ From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 3 09:50:38 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 12:45:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: Sociology Graduate Student Discussion Subject: Fw: Gary Chapman's alarming posting (re: NSF SBER Division) (fwd) Please pass this around to folks in your department. -- Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 3 May 96 11:14 EDT From: Eric Plutzer 814-865-6576 To: psrt-l@mizzou1.missouri.edu, por@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU Subject: Fw: Gary Chapman's alarming posting EXCUSE CROSS-POSTINGS. ***** THE FOLLOWING CLARIFIES WHAT WAS, APPARENTLY, A FALSE ALARM REGARDING ***** N.S.F. SOCIAL SCIENCE SUPPORT. Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 08:21:55 CST From: "Gregory A. Caldeira" Subject: Gary Chapman's alarming posting Author: pchapin@nsf.gov at NOTE Date: 5/1/96 6:46 PM Colleagues, Some of you may by now have received copies of the same troubling message posted by Gary Chapman of the U. of Texas which a couple of people sent me, stating that the Republicans on the House Science Committee voted to eliminate the SBER Division. I forwarded the message to Bill, who checked it out, and determined that it was apparently a misinterpretation of the committee action that actually did occur last week. I have sent the following message to the people who forwarded the message to me; feel free to use any part of it you may wish in responding to any inquiries you get on the same topic. Paul ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re: >>GASP<< Author: pchapin at nsf2 Date: 5/1/96 6:37 PM Dear Steve, Thanks for your message, and for forwarding Gary Chapman's posting (which I understand is being widely circulated). It was the first I had heard of such a claim as Chapman was making, so I had to check it out and see if there was anything to it. I forwarded it to my Division Director (the SBER Division Director, who should be the first to know about these things). He hadn't heard it either, so checked with the NSF Congressional Liaison people. Thus my response to you represents the best information NSF has, which is that the report is incorrect. Our guess is that the factual basis of the report was an event which did take place last week -- the House of Representatives authorization committee responsible for NSF reported out an authorization bill for NSF which instructed NSF to reduce its number of Directorates from seven to six. Last year's House authorization bill for NSF had the same instruction, and added "report language" (not in the bill itself, but in the commentary accompanying the bill) hinting that the Directorate removed should be Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. As far as we know, there is no comparable report language accompanying this year's bill, as yet at least, although it may well be that that is what Rep. Walker, Chair of the committee, has in mind. Now this event is significantly different from Chapman's report in a couple of ways. First, the reference in last year's report language (which may or may not be repeated this year) was to the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences *Directorate*, NOT to the Division for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research as reported. I understand that this may be an obscure distinction to people in the world outside, but within NSF it's an important one. While it would still be troubling for the SBE Directorate to be disestablished as an internal NSF organizational unit, this is a very different thing from "eliminating the SBER Division" as reported. Even if the committee's action were to become law, it would mean an internal NSF reorganiza- tion in which the SBER Division would continue as part of some other Directorate, not be eliminated. Second, while anything is possible from Congress, last year's experience makes it appear quite unlikely that the committee's action will in fact become law. An authorization bill has to pass both the House and the Senate, and then have any differences between the two bodies ironed out in a conference committee, the conference report pass the two bodies again, and then be signed by the President, before it becomes law. The Senate has shown no interest in endorsing the NSF reorganization urged by the House committee. In fact the Senate did not even pass an authorization bill for NSF last year, and may not this year either (in which case NSF's appropriation carries its own authorization). So while we do very much appreciate the attention and concern for SBER reflected in the report, and hope that people will continue to monitor the situation in Congress carefully, in this case I believe the alarm is misplaced. If people do choose to write to their representatives in the Congress, it's important for their letters to reflect a correct understanding of the actual situation. Feel free to forward this message to anyone you wish. Thanks again for calling Chapman's report to my attention. Best regards, Paul Chapin, NSF ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eric Plutzer Department of Political Science e-mail: exp12@psuvm.psu.edu Pennsylvania State University Ph: 814-865-6576 Fx: 814-863-8979 University Park, PA 16802 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sat May 4 17:47:05 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: JLAM@utarlg.uta.edu Date: Sat, 04 May 1996 19:41:29 -0500 (CDT) Subject: possible mail loss To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Hello, everyone: I have not been receiving mail from this discussion group for the last two weeks, not even the weekly mini lecture from T.R. Young that I enjoy reading so much...I am wondering whether it is my network provider's problem or it is just quiet around here...appreciate some feed back thanks...Julia :( _________________________________________________________________ Julia Lam TEL: 817-273-3750 Department of Sociology FAX: 817-273-3759 University of Texas at Arlington E-MAIL: JLAM@UTA.EDU P.O. Box 19599 Arlington, TX 76019-0599 From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sat May 4 18:29:30 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sat, 04 May 96 21:26:28 EDT From: Alan Subject: List quiet To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU For the most part, the list has been quiet but you should have been receiving something from the list, as it has been active. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun May 5 06:53:34 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 05 May 96 08:10:01 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: Somewhere, Over the Rainbow To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY CBS will show the Wizard of Oz this coming Friday at 8 pm [est] for about the 25th time. Each year at the showing, I give a lecture on the populist politics and mythic themes of this most popular movie. And, for those who have seen it five times or more, I give a special Certificate asseverating that one has been to see the Wizard of Oz because, because, because of the wonderful things that happen long before Dorothy and her small band meet him in the Emerald City. So...for those of you who would like to astound, amaze, infuriate and give pause to friends, family and students, this mini-lecture is for you. As we join Dorothy and the others on this wonderful trip, you will have to sing the songs, dance the dances, and accept the Kiss of Goodness from Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. When I give the lecture in person, I play all the parts including that of Glinda and get to kiss the students [on the forehead]...you will have to imagine that as we follow the adventures of: 1. Dorothy...who represents the quest for Community. She personi- fies those who are still young and full of hope for a place, Somewhere, Over the Rainbow, where dreams really do come true. Dorothy is Everybody...even you and I as long as we stay true to the dream of a good and decent society. On the other hand, 2. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry embody those farmers, workers, women and others alienated by the hard times which they find. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry once had red in their cheeks and red in their lips, sparkle in their eyes and color in their life. But now they lived in a grey house in a grey land. They are sober and they do not smile. 3. Kansas and the farm on which they live are miniatures of the economic conditions which came along with the depressions of 1873 and 1893. A great grey flat plain without trees, flowers or water, it was baked by a pitiless sun. Once again, for increasing millions, hard times take the sparkle for the eyes and turn every thing gray...crime, dis-employment, domestic violence, racism, and bureaucratic arrogance slowly drain the color from their lives while the rich getter richer and re-write the laws of the land to protect their shrinking oasises. 4. Toto was the one bright spot in Dorothy's life...as such, he embodies the clown, the jokester, and the jester in history who unmasks pretense, deception and mystification in life. Baum is toto...and so is anyone who laughs at kings, charlatans, and tyrants. You may remember the class clown in your own high school who made mock of the pretensions of petty tyrants. Rush Limbaugh is toto for the far Right...clever, funny and deadly in his bards, he makes mock of liberals. Alas, sadly enough, there is no one on the Left who does so...Garrison Keilor tries but he is too nice to be a real jokester. Ah, for another Lennie Bruce. 5. The Cyclone was made up of the four winds from the North, South, East and West...it represents the power of the people to over- throw alienating conditions in what ever kansas-like place they might find themselves. Today, the Michigan Militia, the Freemen of Montana, and a grow- in radical right underground are riding the winds of destruction. These miniature tornadoes lack good theory and good politics so can be, might be very harmful to a good and peaceful society. Yet at the same time they represent what little opposition to the capitalist state that is found in modern political life...Pat Buchanan is one of the more articulate spokes-persons in whom a critique of the state, of trans-national capital and of the privatized commodity fetishism of Advanced Monopoly Capitalism is located. Again, their are few on the Left who speak in a voice which can be heard in the media...Jesse Jackson tries; perhaps too hard to do so. Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader seem to be other voices drowned by the roaring winds of change. But, just to keep hope alive, we will let the four winds repre- sent the workers, the women, the Afro-Americans and the Native Americans who urge more positive social change. 6. The house in which Dorothy, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry lives repre- sents of course, the whole society...it is made grey by the economic conditions, by pollution, by racism and by gender violence. Of course, the houses in North Dallas which sell for 1, 2, or 4 million dollars are not grey...they are lovely...even the poor and the dis-employed in Texas can drive by and admire them. 7. Oz is the whole world. It is composed of four countries; three are identified in the book: the Land of the Winkies where the Wicked Witch of the West rules, Quadlings County where Glinda the good Witch rules and the land of the Munchkins ruled by the wicked Witch of the West...Jocasta is the good witch of the North...she plays no role in the story and may have been based upon his mother-in-law, Matilda Jocelyn Gage, a good and strong woman who worked with Susan B. Anthony in the suffragette movment. Dorothy may be modelled after Maud Gage, the wife of L. Frank Baum...she too was smart, brave and loving. Yet in Greek mythology, Jocasta was the mother of Oedipus. Maybe we don't want to look at the implications of that witch too closely...ruins the spirit of the story. 8. The Wicked Witch from the East represents finance capital and eastern industrialists who exploited the farmers and workers. Vachel Lindsay wrote a poem about them; plutocrats with greasy smiles with dollar signs upon their coats, diamond watchchains on their vests and spats upon their feet who advocated a tight money policy and the gold standard...who tried to crucify mankind upon a Cross of Gold...to put it in the words of.. 9. Wm. Jennings Bryan who ran on the populist platform in the presidential election of 1890. In the story, Wm J. Bryan was turned into the Cowardly Lion...because he refused to run again after being defeated by eastern capital and western rail-road barons. If we had to appoint a Cowardly Lion in the politics of today, I'm sorry to say it would have to be Bill Clinton...he waffles; he hasn't the courage to fight for health care, social security living wages or for either gender equality or for Afro-Americans. The Cowardly Lion will pick on Toto but is revealed as the coward he is when Dorothy slaps him. He is in sad need of courage. 10. The Straw man represents the quest for brains...he embodies all the farmers in the mid-west who didn't have enough brains to vote for Bryan...in both the book and the movie, the story line has the Strawman hanging on a cross in a corn field...again the crucification theme enuciated by Bryan in his famous Cross of Gold speech. Today, the farm reform Bill once again leaves farmers hanging on the market-place...cereals are dominated by six firms...soon the last of the family farms will be blown away. In American Sociology, the role of the strawman is taken over by those Rural Sociologists who don't have enough brains to see what agri-business is doing to the food supply in the USA. Their are, of course, some good witches in rural sociology; Bill Friedman and Cornelia Flora are my two favorite rural sociologists. 11. The Tin Man once had a heart...and he loved a beautiful maiden. Bt he worked for the Wicked Witch from the East...she made him work so hard that first he cut off an arm, then a leg, then another arm...each time he was repaired [by an industrial sociologist]...but, finally, he worked so hard, he split him- self down the middle of his chest...the tinsmith gave him a tin chest but he didn't put a heart in it...those of you who have read The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis knows what happens to the capacity of young men to love in such alienating working conditions. 12. The Yellow Brick Road represents the Gold Standard...since it is made of gold bricks. The Federal Reserve Bank keeps the interest rates high enough so that workers will not get so much money that they can buy homes, cars, or send their kids to college. Talk about your wicked witches!! 13. The Silver Slippers [not Ruby!]...symbolized the cheap money and the Silver Standard...those who wore the silver slippers were safe on the Yellow Brick Road...remember the WW the East had them on and Glinda told Dorothy to take them off her dead feet...yeah, she would need them to be safe on the YBR...Glinda also gave Dorothy the Kiss of Goodness...that is why the WW from the West could not kill her....wow, what a thiller! 14. The Wizard of Oz represents all those humbugs of a Politician who can't give the people what they didn't have in the first place. His real name was Oscar Z. Phadrig Isaac Norman Hinkle Emmanuel Ambroise Diggs. As with all politicians these days, he doesn't want people to see what goes on behind closed doors...but the totos of the world pull open those doors and reveal him for the fraud and charlatan he/she is. In today's politic there are several who qualify for the part. Mr. Perot is perhaps the leading candidate but Mr. Forbes and Mr. Buchanan also runs...they will have to run fast to beat Bill Clinton for slip sliding around... Come to think of it...Mr. Dole is a bit like Uncle Henry, isn't he...I wonder if he will ever have red in his lips and red in his cheeks or will he stay sombre and grey...maybe Ms. Dole can help...she has brains and courage and, I think, a heart. On the other hand, maybe she too has become like Aunt Em...big sigh for all the Aunt Ems in the world...Patricia Schoeder...were are you? 14. The Emerald City is Washington, D.C.; it is green because green is the color of money and one can't live there unless one gets enough money...true then; true now. The PACs and the Political Parties provide the $50, 60, 80 million that it takes to run for president...Washington is a city completely surrounded by Special Interest Lobbies; big business, big military, big education, big medicine, big guns and big cigaretteers keep the city green. 15. Well that's all the story I will tell...I restrict myself to 200 lines in these mini-lectures but there is a lot in the movie and more in the book I have left out...the Chinamen who were crushed underfoot by giant white guys...the Hammerheads who were rooted to one spot and knocked down any one who tried to make progress up their hill...the Octospider who devoured all small creatures who came his way...the Kalidahs who chased the little party over the two great ditches [depressions], the flying Monkeys which MGM turned into ominous Russians [MGM was having labor troubles in the 1930's when the movie was made]...the poppy field which like my lectures, put everyone to sleep...the Mouse Queen who saved the little party from the evil effects of the poppy. But I will tell you how the story ends...Dorothy doesn't really want to kill anyone but she does kill the WWW; The Wizard is like any good faith-healer; he give the Strawman a new head full of bran [a bran-new brain]; he gives the Cowardly Lion a drink from a green bottle [lots of people get courage from a bottle] and he gives the Tin Man a watch which keeps on ticking. Dorothy, alas, as are you and I, left alone to find our own way home...maybe that is a good thing since we can find the kind of a home with people who have brains, courage, compassion and a sense of sharing that redeems the great grey flat deserts that too often intrude in a green land. Remember...if you only had a brain you could unravel every riddle for every individle in trouble or in pain... And you could be presumin' you could be kinda human if you only had a heart. You could be kind and could be gentle, and awfully sentimental...if you only had a heart. You could show off all your prowess and not be just a mou-wess if you only had the nerve; There is no denyin' you could be a dandy lion if you only had the nerve. Words by Yip Harburg; music by Harold Arlen. And the Kiss of Goodness to you from me as you travel the Yellow Brick Road to Success in American Sociology. TR Young From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 7 12:47:37 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: kdj@unlinfo.unl.edu (kurt johnson) Subject: Anyone working with NSFH2? To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 14:43:05 -0500 (CDT) Hello, One of the many summer 'projects' that I have to acomplish this year is putting together a set of data definition files for the second wave of the NSFH data. I was wondering if anyone out there has worked on or is working towards the same goal and may have some input on the best way to procede. Any info will be helpful. Thanks, Kurt -- Kurt Johnson M.A. Dept of Sociology University of Nebraska - Lincoln kdj@unlinfo.unl.edu From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 7 17:14:32 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: BREKHUS@zodiac.rutgers.edu Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 20:11:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: looking for sources on sampling on the dep. variable To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Hi, I'm working on an epistemology paper right now where I want to draw on some methodology stuff about the problems with sampling on the dependent variable. Can anyone recommend an article or articles that deal with the problems w/ research that samples on the dependent variable in detail? I know methods texts address the problem, but I'm looking for something a little more than a textbook coverage. Its not what the paper is about, but I need to borrow a couple ideas from methodological crtiques of such sampling for one small part of the paper. If you know of any sources on this, please feel free to e-mail them to me privately. Thanks, Wayne brekhus@zodiac.rutgers.edu From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 7 17:57:18 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 07 May 96 20:51:10 EDT From: Alan Subject: the dependent variable problem To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU It is not that sampling on a dependent variable is a problem as much as it makes disentangling and interpreting the effects of your independent variables more problematic. In an ideal world, you want to be sure that your only sources of variance in the dependent variable are due to the independent variables, sampling according to a dependent variable makes this difficult, albeit not impossible statistically. In fact, sociologists would be screwed were it impossible. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 7 22:20:26 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: michael carley Subject: Re: looking for sources on sampling on the dep. variable To: BREKHUS@zodiac.rutgers.edu Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 22:19:09 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <01I4FQ1H7VMM8X0XL2@zodiac.rutgers.edu> from "BREKHUS@zodiac.rutgers.edu" at May 7, 96 08:11:51 pm Wayne, I believe Neil Fligstein has written something on the subject, though I don't have the reference right now.--Of course, in his very next article, he proceeded to do just what he'd been warning against; sample on the dependent variable. Good luck, mike > I'm working on an epistemology paper right now where I want to draw > on some methodology stuff about the problems with sampling on the dependent > variable. Can anyone recommend an article or articles that deal with the > problems w/ research that samples on the dependent variable in detail? I know > methods texts address the problem, but I'm looking for something a little > more than a textbook coverage. Its not what the paper is about, but I need to borrow a couple ideas from methodological crtiques of such sampling for one > small part of the paper. If you know of any sources on this, please feel free > to e-mail them to me privately. > > Thanks, Wayne > brekhus@zodiac.rutgers.edu > From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu May 9 12:42:50 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU id sma022870; Thu May 9 12:44:53 1996 From: "de Pardee, Natalie BioAdmin" To: Socgrad Subject: good books Date: Thu, 09 May 96 12:38:00 PDT Encoding: 8 TEXT Hi. I was hoping someone could suggest a few good books. Specifically, I am looking for thorough introductory texts in theory and in methods. Right now, I am considering George Ritzers' theory books and Earl Babbie's methods book. One of my professors has agreed to monitor some independent work by me this summer and he's asked that I provide a short book list. Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu May 9 15:56:17 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: michael carley Subject: Re: good books To: natalied@biology.lifesci.ucla.edu (de Pardee Natalie BioAdmin) Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 15:54:36 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <31924A05@smtpgate.lifesci.ucla.edu> from "de Pardee, Natalie BioAdmin" at May 9, 96 12:38:00 pm For intro theory, you might consider Coser's "Masters of Sociological Thought" or Collins and Makowsky'a "The Discovery of Society." > > > Hi. I was hoping someone could suggest a few good books. Specifically, I > am looking for thorough introductory texts in theory and in methods. Right > now, I am considering George Ritzers' theory books and Earl Babbie's methods > book. One of my professors has agreed to monitor some independent work by me > this summer and he's asked that I provide a short book list. Any and all > suggestions will be greatly appreciated. > Thanks! > From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 10 07:31:52 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: JGGSO@jazz.ucc.uno.edu 10 May 1996 09:26:36 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 09:26:36 -0600 (CST) Subject: conflict resolution To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Hi anyone out there know of any programs (national or local) that deal with conflict resolution. I am looking for good references also. Usually these types of programs are set up in public schools, especially elementary and middle schools. Thanks for any information you can give. Justine From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 10 08:11:08 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: SHAFER@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU 10 May 1996 11:07:17 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 11:07:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: re:good books To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU I am preparing a contemporary theory course for undergraduates for the fall. Here is a list of some of my source books in theory. General Textbook: The Growth of Sociological Theory. David Westby. Prentice Hall Four Sociological Traditions. Randall Collins.Oxford Univ. Press. Critical Theory. Introduction to Critical Theory. David Held. Univ. of Calif. Press Symbolic Interactionism. Symbolic Interactionism:Perspective and Method. Herbert Blumer. Univ. of California Press. Feminist Social Theory. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. Chris Weedon. Blackwell Pub. Unruly Practices. Nancy Fraser.Univ. of Minnesota Press Social Theory Reader. Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Reader. Charles Lemert. Westview Press. The Lemert reader provides an excellent overview of social theory in the introductions to each chapter. Good Luck it sounds like you will have a busy summer reading in both methods and theory. david shafer brandeis univ. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 10 08:17:16 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 11:09:44 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Sender: thomas conroy Reply-To: thomas conroy Subject: Re: good books To: "de Pardee, Natalie BioAdmin" In-Reply-To: <31924A05@smtpgate.lifesci.ucla.edu> I would think that this might depend on what your project is. There are many, many potentially useful texts out there, but I don't think that they all serve the same purposes. Nevertheless, since I think that there is nothing quite so inspiring as a read of the classics themselves, you might start with excerpts from one or more of the masters; perhaps you can start with a good reader, such as Collins or, even better, Lemert. The other suggestion I have is to take a look at "Thinking Sociologically" by Zygmunt Bauman; he treats a range of mundane actions by building up from them toward macro theory. It's well worth a look. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 10 09:25:07 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: michael carley Subject: Re: conflict resolution To: JGGSO@jazz.ucc.uno.edu Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 09:20:51 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <01I4JAQH1WV694200U@jazz.ucc.uno.edu> from "JGGSO@jazz.ucc.uno.edu" at May 10, 96 09:26:36 am You might try the Journal of Conflict Resolution. > > Hi anyone out there know of any programs (national or local) that deal with > conflict resolution. I am looking for good references also. Usually these > types of programs are set up in public schools, especially elementary and > middle schools. Thanks for any information you can give. Justine > From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 10 10:44:54 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU id sma027241; Fri May 10 10:48:00 1996 From: "de Pardee, Natalie BioAdmin" To: Socgrad Subject: thanks Date: Fri, 10 May 96 10:41:00 PDT Encoding: 4 TEXT Hello everybody. Many thanks for all the reading suggestions. It'll keep me busy! Natalie From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun May 12 06:04:49 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 12 May 96 07:57:50 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: A Song or two for Single Mothers To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY On this Mother's Day, I thought you might like some poems for all those mothers who do not get cards; who do not get flowers, boxes of chocolates; for all those mothers who will are not surrounded by loving children and considerate fathers nor will have love refreshed after a candle-lit dinner. Most Moms are, in these days, single. Some are teen-age mothers who, in the giving of life to their children find themselves vilified and the subject of punitive legislation by fat and comfortable males; some are women who, after giving a life-time of love, support and care to their children, are left alone to read a card or two. Some are women who lie to get food stamps; who steal to clothe their children; who prostitute themselves to pay the rent. To many women in a massified, racist, and class ridden society, Mother's Day is at best irrelevant and at worse a bitter mockery of mother-hood. I have, in my poetry files, three poems which speak to these women with more honesty and clarity than do those on Hallmark Cards at Mother's Day. You might want to call your own Mother and tell her now what you have not yet told her; that which you may not be able to tell her in a few years. The Old Woman As a white candle in a Holy Place, So is the beauty of an aging face. As the spent radiance of the Winter Sun, So is a woman When her travail is done. Her brood gone from her and her thoughts as still as the waters under a ruin'ed hill She waits alone. ...Seosamh MacCathmhaoil Mothers Mothers are the hardest to forgive; Life is the fruit they hand you ripe upon a plate, and while they live, relentlessly Understand you. Phyllys McGinley Eulogy from a Son In the dark womb where I began my mother's life made me a man. Though all the months of human birth her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir but through the death of some of her. What have I done to keep in mind my debt to her and womankind? What woman's happier life repays her for those months and months of wretched days? What have I done, or tried or said in thanks to that dear woman dead? Men triumph over woen still, Men trample women's right at will, and man's lust roves the world untamed. O Grave, keep shut lest I be shamed. ...John Masefield And finally, one I wrote for all those women I have known left to bear a child alone; left with children by a man gone off with a younger girl; left to face a landlord by a drunken husband; beaten by an angry male discarded from his job. Women not much different from my own daughters; not much different from all my students at Texas Woman's University. Not much different from my own sisters and very much like the women who have shared my time and told me of their life. Betrayed and left bereft by men not much different from my brothers; men very much like my sons and men whom, I am sad to say, I have had in class and very much liked. For those women, this poem written and to those women, this day is dedicated. Song for a Single Mother The worthlessness of Worldly things is easy when a poet sings; But if my child is ill abed, Then I steal to bring her bread. To rise above the maddening Throng is noble in the poet's song; But if my child is crying then I must have some coin to spend. To tell the truth is fine indeed; in every Church we hear it spread. But when my child has no roof then truth must find a different proof. 'Tis fine to say that honor grow, and must before all values go; but when I hear my baby's cries then out the door, my honor flies. Jan. 1989 When you do sociology; when you teach social problems; when you lecture on the crimes of women; when you reflect on Control Theory Deviant Subcultures and Operant Conditioning, Three Strikes and Out; if you were a teen-age mother or a single woman/abandoned wife trying to feed and clothe three or four children...how helpful would those theories and those solutions be to you?? Happy Mother's Day, TR Young From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu May 16 18:56:16 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 18:53:08 -0700 (PDT) From: Karen Lee To: Chris Paul , Lloys Frates , "Patrick O'Neill" , Audrey Lee , "Peggy Lee O'Neill" <76171.2327@compuserve.com>, Katherine Grubbs , Jennifer Rayman , Jacqui Dutson , Lawrence Bobo , Lisa Catanzarite , Christena Turner , Steve Cornell , Rebecca Klatch , Steve Epstein , Yen Espiritu , Harvey Goldman , Jeff Haydu , Martha Lampland , John Lie , Bud Mehan , Maria Charles , Victor Nee , Rae Blumberg , William Roy , Philip Yang , socgrad@UCSD.EDU, soc-ucsd@helix.ucsd.edu, Barbara Stewart , David Ravetch , David Mann , James Snyder , Jarvis Mak , Jill Ryan , Mary Jo Johnson , Rebekah Sobel , Lovell Sevilla , Oanh Vu , Roxanne Neal Subject: (Fwd) You may learn something..... (fwd) Ah, I look forward to teaching next year... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > A student comes to a young professor's office hours. He > glances down the hall, closes the door quietly, and kneels > in front of her pleadingly. > > "I would do ...anything...to pass this exam," he gushes. He > leans closer to her, flips back his hair seductively, and gazes > very meaningfully into her eyes. > > "I mean ..." he whispers, "... I would do ANYTHING." > > She returns his gaze. > > "Anything?" > > "Anything." > > Her voice softens. > > "ANYTHING??" > > "ANYTHING." > > She leans forward and presses her cheek against his, with her > mouth next to his ear. Her voice turns to a whisper... > > "Would you ... study?" ----- End Included Message ----- ----- End Included Message ----- From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun May 19 05:45:26 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 19 May 96 08:09:22 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: The Incredible Stupidity of Computers To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Continuation of a mini-lecture on the Complexity of Being... [I'm not sure what happened but, in the middle of the 4th of 6 points I was making, the cursor refused to move; the commands were ignored. Maybe Kermit went on a coffee break??]. 4. [I think] About 400 years ago, commodity capitalism exploded into a great maritime endeavor...about 200 years ago, the steam engine kicked off industrial capitalism. By 1990, there were tens of thousands of occupational identities with which to label categorize, count and confine people into neat and tidy algebras. But...with industrial capitalism ownership of occupational identities was transferred [Marxists use the word, Appropriated] from the self system of the crafts-person to the Table of Organization of the Corporation. The historical link between Mind, Self and Society began to pull apart in ever increasing fashion. 5. By the turn of the 20th Century, the massification of school, church, work and politics were well under way...in a mass insti- tution, the link between self and society become ever more fragile and fragmented...for most hours in most days, one was involved in short social takes which did not emerge out of the core of social being but was taken on for brief and ever more 'rationalized' encounters. In 1800, being a Student was being a student...in 2000, being a student is being a well managed statistic. In 1800, being a Christian was a life style; in 2000, being a Christian is watching a tele-evangelist sing and stomp on about sin. 6. With the globalization of the economy and the dis-integration of occupational, religious, educational and gender socialization and social being, identity wars break out...some try to reclaim ethnic and religious identity as a solution to the collapse of the social base of self in mass, industrial, globalized and fragmented social life. Some turn to exotic eastern religions as a way to fill in the blanks of the social self. Some use clothes, body work, or Astrology with which to create a semiotic self in a mass, impersonal society. Some turn to drugs to obliterate the existential pain of non-being in a racist society hostile to its young and its marginal men and women. Sports serve some. Sociologists are now caught up in the middle of these identity wars, charged as they are to count and to correlate. For many on the Right, the problem is, itself Sociology and the solution is to dismantle the sociology departments which support those who watch and teach about such transformations in the structure of self and society. I don't want to leave the lecture on such a terrible, frightening and pessimistic note...it is well to understand what tearing self and society apart but it is not well to treat the present as if it is the future. There is much which gives hope; the socio- ologist can be part of that or can be apart from it...both stances, are, I think, needed. Some of us can help work toward a society in which mind and self are well connected to friend, family, church, market and government...some can relentlessly critique... some of us can count and correlate the ever-changing dialectics between self and society. Human beings are very creative and very inventive. In our life- time, entirely new solutions to the dialectics of mind, self and society will emerge in the war torn towns of Bosnia, in the killing fields of Cambodia, on the farms and in the factories of the world. Religion will be a very important part of those new solutions; Psychology will play a positive role. Sociology; you and I together with hundreds of others will be very important to the incredible complexity of praxis, being and becoming in the postmodern world which is upon us. It should be very inter- esting and most rewarding...if we do our part and do it well. TR Young From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun May 19 05:49:19 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 19 May 96 08:44:30 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: Lost in Cyber-space To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY It appears that the first four points of a lecture entitled The Incredible Complexity of Being...has been lost in cyberspace. I've been on the internet too long to re-type the lecture...just save the second part and, tomorrow, when I am fresh, I will redo the first part...alas, poor Kermit, I knew him well... TR Young From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 21 11:17:03 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 11:13:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Karen Lee To: Cory Wilson , socgrad@UCSD.EDU, soc-grad@helix.ucsd.edu, Andy Van Horn Subject: discourse analysis unfortunately there are a lot of profs out there that make this a little too close to the truth... What The Professor Really Means By J. Timothy Petersik from the Chronicle of Higher Education You'll be using one of the leading I used it as a grad student. textbooks in the field. If you follow these few simple rules, If you don't need any sleep, you'll do fine in the course. you'll do fine in the course. The gist of what the author is saying I don't understand the details is what's most important. either Various authorities agree that... My hunch is that... The answer to your question is beyond I don't know. the scope of this class. You'll have to see me during my office I don't know. hours for a thorough answer to your question. In answer to your question, you must I really don't know. recognize that there are several disparate points of view. Today we are going to discuss a most Today we are going to discuss my important topic. dissertation. Unfortunately, we haven't the time to I disagree with what roughly half consider all of the people who made the people in this field have contributions to this field. said We can continue this discussion outside 1. I'm tired of this - let's of class quit. 2. You're winning the argument - let's quit. Today we'll let a member of the class I stayed out to late last night and lead the discussion. It will be a good didn't have time to prepare a educational experience. lecture Any questions? I'm ready to let you go. The implications of this study are I don't know what it means either, clear. but there'll be a question about it on the test. The test will be 50-questions The test will be 60-questions mul- multiple choice. tiple guess, plus three short-answer questions (1000 words or more) and no one will score above 55 per cent. The test scores were generally good. Some of you managed a C+. The test scores were a little below Where was the party last night? my expectations. Some of you could have done better. Everyone flunked. Before we begin the lecture for Has anyone opened the book yet? today, are there any questions about previous material? According to my sources... According to the guy who taught this class last year... It's been very rewarding to teach I hope they find someone else to this class. teach it next year. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed May 22 13:05:52 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 22:02:24 +0200 To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski) Subject: incorrect divorce statistic "A Shocking Divorce Statistic Turns Out to Be Just a Glitch" It was a shocking statistic, influential in the movement to change= America's divorce and child-support laws. Eleven years ago, the sociologist Lenore J. Weitzman published "The= Divorce Revolution," her groundbreaking study of California's no-fault= divorce system. She reported that women's households suffered a 73 percent drop in= their standard of living in the first year after divorce, while men's= households enjoyed a 42 percent rise. Since then, the figures have been quoted hundreds of times in= newspapers, politicians' speeches and court rulings. There's only one problem, The Associated Press reports: Her figures= are wrong. Richard R. Peterson, a New York sociologist who reanalyzed Miss= Weitzman's data from records archived at Radcliffe College's Murray= Research Center, found a 27 percent decline in women's postdivorce standard= of living and a 10 percent increase in men's-- still a serious gap, but not= the catastrophic one that Miss Weitzman saw. Miss Weitzman, a professor of sociology and law at George Mason= University in Fairfax, Virginia, now acknowledges her figures were wrong. She attributes it to the loss of her original computer data file, a= weighting error or a mistake in the computer calculations performed by a= Stanford University research assistant. But "I'm responsible-- I reported it," she says. =46rom *The International Herald Tribune,* Saturday-Sunday, May 18-19, 1996. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu May 23 08:49:18 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 11:45:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Quynh-Giang Tran To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Subject: subscribe From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Mon May 27 04:10:44 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Mon, 27 May 96 06:53:36 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: The Golden Years of American Sociology To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Graduate students find the search for jobs much different from most of their professors. Most senior faculty came of age in the golden years of American Capitalism. Now, many grad students send out 50, 100, 500 letters; they get 5, 3, 1 or sometimes no invitations. It is not strange that American education in general and American The years from 1943 to 1975 were the Golden Years of American Capitalism. It is not extraordinary that American education in general and Sociology in particular should fall of hard time. Here is the long term process. 1. The center of world capitalism moved, over the centuries, from Venice to Brussels to London and, in the 19th century, to New York and the USA. Investment capital follows open markets, cheap labor and natural resources...has done and is doing so. 2. The US emerged from the WWII at the top of the industrial world and had world markets, willing workers and access to 'strategic' raw materials around the world. Those today proud in power came of age between 1950 and 1975; they benefited greatly from the Golden years. White Anglo Males did very well indeed; hundreds of thousands made use of the GI Bill, low interest loans and a widening market. In such an economy, there is room and room enough for liberal politics in race, class and gender stratifications. The Civil Rights Movements and the Women's Movements in the USA floated on the prosperity of US hegemony in world markets. Previous Struggles against racism and sexism fell on more difficult times. The Occupation Structure of the USA changed dramatically through those years in terms of racial, class and gender access to education, jobs and political capital. 3. Other capitalist nations, feuled by the Marshall Plan and lead by France made a sustained effort to open up world markets to their own capitalists and workers...by 1972, Europe was back in the running for markets and resources. 4. The USSR and its socialist allies made something of a contest of it until the late 80's at which time internal problems effectively reduced its challenge to globalized capitalism. That chapter is not yet finished; ever new developments emerge from the old Soviet Bloc...but right now, the fate of American Capital, and by inevitable embrace, American labor including sociologists is in the hands of the third world with no where to go except into capitalism markets with the advantage of much cheaper labor and much more docile political parties. 5. American Sociology rose to global hegemony in the same years. With over 12,000 members and an armlock on most sociology journals and research grants, those years were good for new Ph.D's and for graduate students seeking grants and places in sociology. Being closely tied to American Capital and the US state for both funds and jobs, American sociologists bought and sold a very liberal analysis; stratification was good and necessary; mobility was based on merit; progress was entrained; the state played a beneficent role; social problems were tractable and sociology would help the State manage them. 6. Newly Industrialized States sucked capital, jobs and markets from the old, entrenched capitalist states...with cheaper labor, easy access to markets, disregard for environment and 'friendly' governments [many on the payroll of the CIA], US capital, German capital, Arabian capital and Canadian capital deserted Europe and North America. Japan got infusions of billions of dollars when the US entered the Korean War. Korean and Taiwan recieved economic benefits from the Vietnamese War and put it to use to enter world markets previously controlled by and benefitting American and European workers. The great programs of social justice which grew out of the 60's became a fiscal burden for American Capitalist in the the 1980s...conservative politicians took state power; liberalism became a dirty word. 7. American Sociology suffered and suffers the effects of this move- ment of jobs and capital toward lower costs and higher profits. a. Grants and research funds dried up as the tax base failed to match the demands of higher education. Fewer grad students could be supported by departments; more had to find private funds or drop out. b. Women and Afro-Americans, few but ambitious, began to compete with ever more success with we White, Anglo Males...much to our displeasure, the Old Boy Network was duplicated by a Feminist Network which was and is successful in placing students and in gaining office in professional associations around the country and in the national offices at 1700 N. St., NW, 20036. c. In the good years of American Capitalism, liberal, left- liberal and marxist faculty gained tenure positions and, too often, Chair of Departments and Committees. d. This mildly radical strain in American Sociology became an ideological problem in a faltering political economy; conflict theories and feminist theories provided home truths about the State, the Economy, the various Stratification schemes, the fragmented nature of progress as well as some dangerous data about linkages between state and corporate life. Sociology departments became early sacrifices to the fiscal crisis of a liberal but capitalist state. Positions were left vacant; CPH were maintained by ever larger classes and by recruiting cheap labor from the sociology surplus population. 7. American Sociology is still greatly privilege and greatly appreciated in its more accomodating dimensions; Structural- Functionalism knows no enemies and incurs no wrath from those at the top of these pyramids of wealth and power. And, since the children of the working classes and the children of Afro- Americans do not constitute the natural client of the Capitalist State, their critiques are not voiced nor heeded if voiced. 8. Finally, the USA as well as American Sociology are far better off now than in the 1930's, 40's and well into the 50's. But compared to what we had and what we expect, we are poor indeed. Now we are reduced to internal discord as we scramble for support from a mean-spirited Congress and from ever more elitist state govern- ments. The USA will survive; American Sociology will survive; most grad students will find jobs if only low paid adjunct positions in which they must drive from place to place to teach lower division course while White, Male, Female, Afro-Americans who do have tenure do very well. In the third world, newly industrialized countries will use some of the surplus value to build schools, hospitals, roads and homes for third world peoples...and build sociology departments with indigeneous scholars and more global theories to teach ever more students about the social life worlds in which they live and the global economy in which they strive for pride of place. It is no great tragedy that American Sociology has fallen on hard times if it means that the authentic self knowledge of both rich and poor capitalist countries is thereby improved; if it means that social research is much more comparative; if if means that sociological theories are much less celebratory of the nations in which they are created and used to reproduce privilege and power. This is no great solace to grad student in American Sociology looking for jobs and tenure under very different conditions from their mentors...but it is a comfort and a solace to the young people in Africa, Asia and South America who had to listen, learn from and institute theories learned from arrogant American Professors in Politics, Economics, Anthro- pology and Sociology which treated their countries and their cultures as primitive, under-developed, emerging or backward. TR Young From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Mon May 27 06:24:06 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 09:20:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: Sociology Graduate Student Discussion Subject: FW: Job opening in survey research -- international focus (fwd) FYI ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 12:26:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Chun_Y To: Public Opinion Research Discussion Subject: FW: Job opening in survey research -- international focus FYI. - Young ---------- From: owner-aapornet To: aapornet Subject: Job opening in survey research -- international focus Date: Friday, May 24, 1996 2:22PM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- The Office of Research and Media Reaction of the United States Information Agency (USIA) has an opening for a Social Science Analyst in Washington, DC. The incumbent will be responsible for initiating, planning, and supervising the execution of surveys on public opinion and media behavior in the countries of the former Soviet Union, for analyzing survey data, and for preparing reports on the findings for U.S. government policy-makers. The position is at the GS-101-9/11/12 level (with potential to GS-13). Starting salary will be between $30,658 and $57,800, depending on qualifications and experience Training and experience in survey research is a requisite. Applicants will be evaluated on the basis of five criteria: (1) knowledge of survey research methodology and quantitative data analysis; (2) skill in organizing and conducting research on public opinion, the mass media, and political, economic, and cultural developments; (3) knowledge of the politics, societies, and cultures of the former Soviet Union and US foreign policy toward the region; (4) skill in writing clearly and concisely in English; and (5) knowledge of one or more of the major foreign languages of the region. Please bring this announcement to the attention of researchers and graduate students who may be interested. Completed applications should be submitted by June 21, 1996. For further information and/or to request a copy of the job announcement (HRC-29-96) with details on how to apply for this position, please contact Steven A. Grant, Chief, or Richard B. Dobson, Russia, Ukraine, and Commonwealth Branch, USIA Office of Research and Media Reaction. By email: GRANT@USIA.GOV or DOBSON@USIA.GOV By phone: (202) 619-5130 (Grant) or 619-5131(Dobson) By fax: (202) 619-6977 By mail: Russia, Ukraine, and Commonwealth Branch, Office of Research and Media Reaction U.S. Information Agency 301 Fourth Street, SW Washington, DC 20547 From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Mon May 27 16:38:33 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 16:37:26 -0700 To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: lichter@ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter) Subject: Sokal "hoax" I'm curious if anybody has seen the Alan Sokal "hoax" article that was published in Social Text and has apparently gotten a lot of publicity. I wonder if it's really as meaningless as Sokal says. Does this hoax pose any danger to the credibility of sociology (which was not directly implicated)? I have included an excerpt from the May '96 mini-Annals of Improbable Research (publication and subscription info at end), which is where I first heard about it. I assume that since others have mentioned it, that the hoax is not the mini-AIR's. Michael > ----------------------------------------------------------- > 1996-05-04 Levels of Non-Meaning: The Recursive Hoax > > What, indeed, is reality? Fed up with the persistence of pseudo- > scientific pseudo-scholarly claptrap and gibberish, Alan Sokal > submitted a load of intentionally utter nonsense to a > "prestigious" "cultural studies" journal. 'Tis a wonderful piece > of writing, indistinguishable from (and no less coherent than) the > articles it mocks. The journal, "Social Text," published this > wonderfully moronic prose in its May '96 issue. Sokal, a New York > University physicist, then wrote up the whole fiasco; he published > his expose in the magazine "Lingua Franca." All this has been > detailed in the general press. > > But it may not be the whole story. We obtained a copy of "Social > Text" and commissioned a panel of scholars (one of whom is a > convicted felon) to read and deconstruct the text. The panel > concluded -- unanimously -- that the other articles in "Social > Text" are devoid of meaning and probably are themselves hoaxes. > Thus Professor Sokal, thinking that he was cleverly showing up > some rotten eggheads, was instead being suckered by a band of > jokers more clever than himself. > > So bravo, bravo, bravo to the deadpan merry old pranksters who > call themselves "cultural studies scholars." Their many deadpan > statements to the press in recent days are further triumphs in the > grand dada style. > > [TECHNICAL AFTERNOTE: For the sake of completeness, we now plan to > pulverize our copy of "Social Text," and flush the particles into > a particle accelerator. Our expectation is that this Deridaist- > Joycean-Gell-Mannian particle collision process will synthesize a > new word: "krock," which is derived from "krauq, which is a > backwards spelling of the word "quark."] > The mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR") > Issue Number 1996-05 > May, 1996 > ISSN 1076-500X > Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in > The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), > the journal of inflated research and personalities > ================================================================ > ----------------------------------------------------- > 1996-05-19 Our Address (*) > > The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) > PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA > 617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 > > EDITORIAL: marca@wilson.harvard.edu > GENERAL INFO (supplied automatically): info@improb.com > SUBSCRIPTIONS: air@improb.com > > URL: http://www.improb.com/ > > We read everything we receive, but are unable to answer all of it. > If you need a reply, please include your Internet address and/or a > SASE in all printed correspondence. -- Michael Lichter UCLA Department of Sociology From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 28 07:16:04 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 10:03:27 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Subject: Re: Sokal "hoax" To: "Michael I. Lichter" In-Reply-To: re: the Sokal "hoax" I've read it, and it seems to be the sort of thing that, while unclear in some of the details, and rather grandiose in its overall claims (i.e., that deconstructionism and post-modernism closely parallel post-relativity physics), is also available for being read as an interesting think piece. However, upon knowing that it represents a hoax, it seems rather clear to be a sarcastic swipe at the social sciences, particularly the sociology of scientific knowledge, post-modernism and critical theory. However, since Professor Sokal pulls statements and concepts out of context, he ultimately indicts himself, that is, if his intention had been to use irony/satire to make a serious, critical point. If his point had been more innocent, to simply have literary fun, I'm sure that there would be more appropriate forums than the pages of Social Text, a journal I still think well of (though I would like to hear something from them about how submitted articles are evaluated, now). From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed May 29 13:37:55 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 29 May 96 16:29:26 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: a diversion (fwd) (fwd) To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU This ought to spark some discussion. There is also an article on the Sokal-Social Text controversy in the NYT Week in Review from last Sunday. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- It is always helpful to note how we are perceived by others ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 05:43:18 +0600 Reply-To: UCSB Religious Studies Forum Sender: UCSB Religious Studies Forum From: Mark Diller Subject: a diversion Shawn reminded me of the compelling need to distract ourselves from current projects this time of year, so I offer the following. In a recent, mostly futile effort to work my way through the huge pile of unread magazines that teeters precariously beside my bed, I came across an article in the November/December issue of the Utne Reader that could prove diversionary. The article deals with the current problems of a certain portion of academia. I propose a new game: "Name That Discipline!" Below portions of the article are reproduced, with every specific mention of the discipline excised and names reduced to initials, to protect the innocent. Read it through, line by line, considering the issues presented, and see how soon you can Name That Discipline! The answer is at the bottom (so no peaking!). **** on the Skids: A Once-Great Discipline is Having an Identity Crisis **** has fallen into a 'dismal abyss' from which it may never recover, announced distinguished **** I.H., editor of the journal ****, in his book _The Decomposition of ****. The field 'is in a tailspin and no one seems to know what to do,' agrees another **** quoted in the ultraconservative **** publication _Insight on the News_ (Feb. 14, 1994). Statistics ... support these dire conclusions: U.S. universities conferred 35,996 undergraduate degrees in **** in 1973, but by 1991 that number had dropped to 14,393. At three U.S. schools in recent years, **** departments in which the professors had come to outnumber the students have been forced to close their doors; others have had their budgets slashed, reports H. Why has **** ... fallen on such hard times? ... **** is loaded with specialist jargon, say some critics both within and outside of the profession, while others are quick to label easily readable **** research as mere journalism. **** is divided into too many specialized fiefdoms, goes another argument, but others insist that generalization isn't sufficiently scientific. But these debates may merely be symptoms of a deeper problem still. ... Comfortable in neither the natural sciences nor the humanities, **** has never been able to agree upon its mission or methods. From its very inception it has been an 'impossible science' torn between the ideals of scientific objectivity and humanistic reform-mindedness. The pressing need on the part of funding-hungry **** departments to resolve this tension in one direction or the other is a crippling problem. To explain the world or to change the world -- that seems to be the question. H. argues that **** began as an objective social science and has become increasingly and problematically 'enmeshed in the politics of advocacy and the ideology of self-righteousness'. ... Many **** feel that 'scientific' **** may actually be the problem, not the solution [since it] 'tends to make a fetish of 'hard numbers' ... rather than trying to understand how social groups interpret and act on the circumstances those numbers describe.'. ... Reknowned **** N.G. offers a solution -- **** 'should be both a humanistic and a scientific discipline, based on the search for objective truth in the belief that such truth can serve mankind, but recognizing in **** truth cannot have the character it has in the [natural] sciences.' ... C.W. argues that empirical **** can and should seek to describe the objective structures that constitute that elusive entity, '****,' but only the imagination can measure the moral distance between individuals and those structures. The **** must, to paraphrase Vaclav Havel's vision of the postmodern politician, 'trust not only an objective interpretation of reality, but also his own soul.' The answer is ... sociology. In reading through this for the first time I was struck by the irony that this discipline, which in my experience has often been promoted in religious studies as a model for how we should proceed, seems to be experiencing many of the same tensions as we are, and perhaps is even more troubled by them than are we. I'm not sure what the conclusion of this all is, if anything; perhaps it's that we're all going to hell in a handbasket together. Or perhaps it's that religious studies will not solve its problems by moving in the direction of the "hard" sciences, since such a movement will simply land us in the quasi-empiricism of sociology. If the tension between science and the humanities is in fact irreducible, then we should focus on making that tension creative, rather than destructive as has been the case with sociology. I'm open to suggestions. Mark Mark Diller - Univ. of Chicago Divinity School - a.ka. zagreus@aol.com "In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you." -Jack Handey From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed May 29 13:42:59 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 29 May 96 16:36:12 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: Sokal/Social Text controversy To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Here are some postings from another list a few weeks ago. The second posting is Andrew Ross's (the editor of Social Text) response. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 11:04:55 -0400 Reply-To: UCSB Religious Studies Forum Sender: UCSB Religious Studies Forum From: Joel Elliott Subject: Lingua Franca/Alan Sokal controversy i am forwarding this post with the author's permission. FYI, joel elliott@email.unc.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 09:42:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Alex Soojung-Kim Pang To: Sci-Tech Studies Subject: Lingua Franca I'm sure I'm not the only one who has seen Alan Sokal's "A PHysicist Experiments with Cultural Studies," _Lingua Franca_ (May/June 1996), 62-64, in which the author reveals that an article he wrote and was published in _Social Text_ was intended as a spoof-- or more damanging, a test to see whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies... [would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions." (62) For anyone who hasn't seen the article yet, Sokal is a physicist who write a piece entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." Problem is, the piece was salted with junk science, then mixed with quotes of Derrida, Lacan, etc., and served up to the _Social Text_ editorial board-- which appears to have swallowed it whole. Is this the whole story? Or was it published as a parody? My initial reaction was to laugh; my second reaction was to cry, knowing that we're _all_ likely to be tarred with this brush. Might it be time to draw some boundaries between those of us who admire some of what science studies thinks and says, but consider people like Andrew Ross to be intellectual poseurs? There's a world of difference between Martin Rudwick, Peter Galison, etc. and the less reputable; and some culling of the ranks, or at least explanation of the differences between the really good and the really bad, might be in order. Cheers, Alex Pang ----------------------- now Deputy Editor Encyclopedia Britannica 310 South Michigan Ave. Chicago IL 60604 apang@eb.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 11:06:10 -0400 Reply-To: UCSB Religious Studies Forum Sender: UCSB Religious Studies Forum From: Joel Elliott Subject: lingua franca / alan sokal controversy II [again, forwarded with permission. FYI, joel elliott@email.unc.edu] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 14:58:49 -0400 (EDT) From: andrew ross To: STS@CCTR.UMKC.EDU Subject: the sokal affair In response to Mr. Pang's posting, some of you may indeed have read NYU physicist Alan Sokal's announcement in Lingua Franca of his perpetration of a hoax, to wit, that he wrote a parody of a "cultural studies of science" article in order to see if it would be accepted by a journal like Social Text. According to Sokal, he took this action, as a progressive and a scientist, in order to assist in "the intellectual renovation of the left." In my capacity as a co-editor of Social Text, i append the response below, which will appear in some form in Lingua Franca in the summer. p.s. it's always interesting to see someone in mr. pang's position calling for a "culling of the ranks." ----------------------- What were some of the initial responses of the journal's editors when we first learned about Alan Sokal's prank upon Social Text? One suspected that Sokal's "parody" was nothing of the sort, and that his admission represented a change of heart, or a collapse of his intellectual resolve. Another, while willing to accept the story, was less sure that Sokal knew very much about what or whom he thought he was kidding. A third was pleasantly astonished to learn that the journal is taken seriously enough to be considered a threat to anyone, let alone to natural scientists. At least two others were furious at the dubious means by which he chose to make his point. All were concerned that his actions might simply spark off a new round of caricature and thereby perpetuate the climate in which science studies has been subject recently to so much derision from conservatives in science. However varied the responses, we all believe that Sokal took too much for granted in his account of his prank. Indeed, his claim--that our publication of his article proves that something is rotten in the state of cultural studies--may have turned out to be as wacky as the article itself. First, let me recount the history of the editorial process regarding Sokal's article, in order to provide readers with a framework that Lingua Franca did not seek when they decided to publish his piece. From the first, we considered Sokal's unsolicited article to be a little hokey. It is not every day that we receive a dense philosophical tract from a professional physicist. Not knowing the author or his work, we engaged in some speculation about his intentions, and concluded that this article was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field. His adventures in PostmodernLand were not really our cup of tea. Like other journals of our vintage that try to keep abreast of cultural studies, it has been many years since Social Text published contributions to the debate about postmodern theory, and Sokal's article would have been regarded as sophomoric and/or outdated (and therefore unnacceptable to the editors) if it had come from a humanist or social scientist. As the work of a natural scientist it was unusual, and, we thought, plausibly symptomatic of how someone like Sokal might approach the field of postmodern epistemology i.e. awkwardly, assertively, and somewhat aimlessly, with a veritable armada of footnotes to ease his sense of vulnerability. In other words, we read it more as an act of good faith of the sort that might be worth encouraging than as an exercise of the intellect whose scholarly worth had to be judged. On those grounds, the editors considered that it might be of interest to readers as a "document" of that time-honored tradition in which modern physicists have discovered harmonic resonances with their own reasoning in the field of philosophy and metaphysics. Consequently, the article met one of the several criteria for publication which Social Text recognizes. As a non-refereed journal of political opinion and cultural analysis (entirely self-published by an editorial collective until its recent adoption by Duke University Press), Social Text has always seen its lineage in the "little review" tradition of the independent left as much as in the academic domain, and so we often balance diverse editorial criteria when discussing the worth of submissions, whether they be works of fiction, interviews with sex workers, or interventions in postcolonial thought. In other words, this is an editorial milieu with principles and aims quite remote from that of a professional scientific journal. Having established an interest in Sokal's article, we did ask him informally to revise the piece. We made a general request to him a) to excise a good deal of the philosophical speculation and b) to excise most of his footnotes. Sokal seemed resistant to any general revisions of this sort, and indeed insisted on retaining almost all of his footnotes and bibliographic apparatus on the grounds that his peers, in science, expected extensive documentation of this sort. Judging from his response, it was clear that his article would appear as is, or not at all. At this point, Sokal was admitted to the category of "difficult, uncooperative author," well known to journal editors. His article entered a state of limbo, well known at Social Text at least, as "too much trouble to publish, not yet on the reject pile, and capable of being redeemed if published in the company of related articles." Some months after this impasse was reached, the editors did indeed decide to assemble a special issue on the topic of science studies. We wanted to gauge how science studies practitioners were responding to the scurrilous attacks of Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, and other conservatives in science. Contributions were solicited from across the field of knowledge; from humanists, social scientists and natural scientists (the final lineup included many of the more significant names in science studies (Sandra Harding, Steve Fuller, Emily Martin, Hilary Rose, Langdon Winner, Dorothy Nelkin, Richard Levins, George Levine, Sharon Traweek, Sarah Franklin, Ruth Hubbard, Joel Kovel, Stanley Aronowitz, and Les Levidow). Most responded directly to the evolving controversy that some were calling the "Science Wars," while others wrote their own accounts of work in their respective fields. Here, we thought, was an appropriate and heterogenous context in which Sokal's article might appear, providing a feasible solution to our editorial dilemma. He expressed some concern when asked if we could publish his piece in this special issue (we assumed he wished to distance himself from the polemical company assembled for the issue), but he reiterated his eagerness to see it in print. Our final decision to include him presumed that readers would see his article in the particular context of the Science Wars issue, as a contribution from someone unknown to the field whose views, however peculiar, might still be thought relevant to the debate. Since his article was not written for that special issue, and bears little resemblance, in tone or substance, to the other commissioned articles, it was not slated to be included in the expanded book version of the issue (with additional articles by Katherine Hayles, Michael Lynch, Roger Hart, and Richard Lewontin) which will be published by Duke University Press in September. In sum, Sokal's assumption that his "parody" struck a disreputable chord with the woozy editors of Social Text is ill-conceived. Indeed, its status as parody does not alter substantially our initial perception of, and our interest in, the piece itself as a curio, or symptomatic document. Of course, the whole affair may say something about our own conception of how physicists read philosophy, but that seems less important to us than that his prank does not simply lead to a heightening of the hysteria which the Science Wars have induced. Most of all, what his confession altered was our perception of his own good faith as a self-proclaimed leftist. In the view of our editors, Alan Sokal was now revealed to be either a) a leftist whose self-loathing has been activated by conservative caricatures of the cultural left, or b) a leftist whose genuine sense of commitment led him to a questionable manner of expressing his political point. In either respect, his actions smacked of a temper often attributed to "unreconstructed male leftists." More to the point, the boy stunt pulled by Sokal seemed typical of the professional culture of science education. Having talked to the (real) Sokal subsequently, we believe that most of the issues he intended to air are, at this point, rather well-known to readers of Social Text and to Lingua Franca. Indeed, they have been going the rounds in the academy since the first postmodern, social constructionist, or anti- foundational critiques of positivism appeared over thirty-five years ago. That many natural scientists have only recently felt the need to respond to these critiques says something about the restricted trade routes through which knowledge is still circulated in the academy, policed, as it is, at every departmental checkpoint by disciplinary passport controls. Nor are these critiques unfamiliar to folks who have long been involved in debates about the direction of the left, where positivism has had a long and healthy life. At this point in time, we have a vestigial stake in these critiques and debates, but much less of an interest than Sokal supposes. When Sokal discovers that the cultural left he believes he has outsmarted really doesn't give much of a hoot about what Lacan said about topology in his 1966 seminar, then we can talk turkey. Our main concern is that readers who may be new to the debates engendered by science studies are not persuaded by the Sokal stunt that this is simply an academic turf war between scientists and humanists/social scientists, with one side trying to outsmart the other. More important to us is the gulf of power between experts and lay voices, and the currently shifting relationship between science and the corporate state. Nor are these concerns extrinsic to the practice of science. Prior to deciding whether science intrinsically tells the truth, we must ask, again and again, whether it is possible, or prudent, to isolate facts from values. Why does science matter so much? Because its power, as a civil religion, as a social and political authority, affects our daily lives and the parlous condition of the natural world more than does any other domain of knowledge. Does it follow that non-scientists should have some say in the decision-making processes that define and shape the work of the professional scientific community? Some scientists (including Sokal presumably) would say yes, and in some countries, non-expert citizens do indeed participate in these processes. All hell breaks loose, however, when the following question is asked. Should non-experts have anything to say about scientific methodology and epistemology? After centuries of scientific racism, scientific sexism, and scientific domination of nature one might have thought this was a pertinent question to ask. Andrew Ross, Co-Editor, Social Text andrew ross 212-998-8538 american studies program, NYU 285 mercer st. 8th flr. new york, ny 10003 ========================================================================= From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed May 29 17:10:25 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 20:05:54 -0400 (EDT) To: SOCGRAD@UCSD.EDU From: Jerry Blaz Subject: Re: The Golden Age of Sociology I agree with Prof. Young's analysis of the problems of American Sociology today but I would like to add some additional factors to his analysis. These are just some thoughts and do not represent a systematic analysis. In the depths of the depression in the 30s, there was a flowering of sociology, particularly at the University of Chicago, where Parker, Thomas, and the rest of the "Chicago school" of ethnographic sociology developed out of what was basically the pragmatic philosophy of Mead. This was not a sociology flowing necessarily from the kind of funding sources available today, but the attitude of institutions of higher learning to creation of knowledge. However, the positivist school, using the methods developed in the natural sciences, promised a bigger payoff. Quantified results still enthrall most of sociology. However, where natural science created statistics from universes of millions of units, social science developed with universes of hundreds, and for very simple phenomena has proven itself effective. Yet as the methods of statistical analysis become more and more sophisticated, and went from the descriptive to the inferential, I believe that the very kernal of sociological investigation became lost, mutated, changed. Structural-functionalism, which I believes represents the zenith of positivistic thought in sociology, with powerful intellectual engines driving it, like Merton and Parsons, with its basically conserving assumptions, had a better reception at a time when industry and business was flowering after the dormancy of the depression. For the industrial and business interests, it posed a more benign approach to the study of sociology than other methodologies, it was nurtured. It drew the financial support that gave it dominance in the field for over twenty years. In the end, even though it was amenable to quantitative analyses, it was the last macro approach to society to gain such dominance in the field. Today, quantitative analysis is still de rigour in most sociology departments in spite of the huge volume of work it produces with the pitiful follow-through of a payoff. Simply put, the payoff in terms of understanding social humanity has not increased proportionally to the output of work. Too much of this work lacks consequence. First of all, I took four or five different statistics courses in sociology, and I know that my understanding of the effects of the processing of data on the human units from which this data stems is disassociated in strange ways from them. It is as though we prepare slides for electronic microscopes, and looking at the slides and examining what we find helps us to understand the social life of the creatures from which these very thin slides of dead, preserved and stained flesh were made. The greatest use of quantitative social analysis has been in analizing social action in market research, which generally utilizes more descriptive statistics (and, incidentally, includes many childhood acquaintances of mine among those who have been successful entrepreneurs and pioneers in the field, including the founder of Gilbert Market Research, which was the first market research firm to research the youth market). This field really burgeoned during the fifties, when I was out of the country, so I am not really an eye-witness (but I have often marveled at the number of successful acquaintances I could count in that field whom I generally knew to be fine young people). Today, the newest candidate for dominance in the macro area is probably comparative historical analysis, which actually is more historical than sociological, IMHO, but compensates for the lack of historical perspective that is in much sociology. I do not believe that quantitative longitudinal studies parallel comparative historical analyses in any meaningful way. This new comparative historical methodology is mainly qualitative, although there are instances where statistics can be used. However, I do not believe it will occupy a place like structural-functionalism one time did in sociology, although reading the work is not as frustrating as trying to penetrate Parsonian prose. Critical theory has created an important place for itself in European sociology, but it remains principally as a an exotic import, more like baklava than any piece de resistance of sociology in America. Ethnography is a peripheral study in sociology today, but there are some talented people working in it. The main body of ethnographic work is being done in anthropology where much more energy is being invested in the kinds of textual analysis that Sokol apparently was parodying (I have not read his article yet). In the qualitative area, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, generally included under the rubric of micro-sociology, is one of the most promising areas of developing sociology. From the seminal work that began in the mid-sixties till today, the people working in it have done some very interesting work, considering the fact that funding has been frugal within the context of relative frugality that exists for sociology as a field and as departments in universities. I have already related in a prior message to this list how the sociology department at UCLA occupies space in one of the oldest, most earthquake-prone buildings on the campus while the Anderson Graduate School of Management occupying one of the newest, if not the newest building on campus, is in the process of now occupying the spanking brand new, enlarged and improved Anderson Graduate School of Management's newer building, and the uncontestably newest building on campus. At the same time, without the benefit of these physical accoutrements, the UCLA graduate sociology program has been rated no. 5 in the country this year. I guess my point is that sociology has never been an attraction for the big endowments and other financial emoluments. The attraction to positivistic approaches to social problems is probably fueled by a desire to make sociology appear relevant to the needs of the sources of these emoluments. As an extension of this positivistic leaning, quantification of sociological data has become a standard feature of most research. More sophisticated mathematical methods are being applied to sociology creating quantitative social models of both macra and micro types, and I cannot evaluate them in any other way than their application and effective use in social analytical results, which has not been as outstanding as the imaginative use of mathematical concepts to social entities. My mathematical background is the several statistical courses I have taken which only convinced me of the restrictive conceptual reduction that occurs when social phenomena are turned into mathematical analytical units, so the "real life" social entity is not the same as its analytical (dis)incarnation. I believe that it takes a mathematician to understand the depth of a canonical analysis or multiple regression or path analysis, for example. Generally, sociologists turn to the computer statistical program and use its benchmarks to guage the significance of any results. Sociologists often lack the basic mathematical background to think mathematically enough to really own the knowledge they produce through a computer statistical program. Nonetheless, even good scores in sociological data do not compare to the good scores in the natural sciences, so a 65 percentile correlation in sociology means good reasults where it would take a 95 percentile to evoke to same kind of optomism in the natural sciences. In summation, I guess my thoughts on the problems of sociology as a discipline, added to the analysis of Prof. Young, gives his analysis a more complex tilt. I think it provides it with a texture that only aids in making his analysis more comprehensive. I hope he agrees with my complementary thoughts. Certainly these days may be considered to be hard times at the sociology department. I had to drop out last year because my fees are up about 300 percent and I had no funding. However, my own situation does not justify me concluding that the funding shortage began with the economic downturn of the past few years. That is just too pat. Jerry Blaz Jerry Blaz/The BOOKie Joint 7246 Reseda Blvd. Reseda, CA 91335 USA (818)345-2983/(818)343-1055 ffdog@earthlink.net Outside of a dog, a man's best friend is a good book. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. G. Marx From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed May 29 23:35:30 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 02:31:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Michele & Ziggy To: SOCGRAD@UCSD.EDU Subject: Re: The Golden Age of Sociology In-Reply-To: <199605300005.UAA01180@norway.it.earthlink.net> Although I appreciate Jerry Blaz's additions to the nostalgic construction of sociology's downfall, there are some points in this narrative which really trouble me. First, the Chicago School grew out of a multitude of influences (eg Simmel). It can hardly be reduced to Mead. Park (I assume that "Parker" was a reference to Robert Park) was probably more influenced by another pragmatist, John Dewey, than by Mead. Second, the common lumping of positivism with structural-functionalism, and even worse, with quantitative appoaches leaves me exasperated. When did anybody ever see Parsons or Merton engaged in quantitative analysis? Indeed the Grand Theory approach of Parsons seems irreconcilable with an empiricist quantitative approach. Although there were people who fused these two strands (eg. Lazarsfeld [with very primitive statistics]), they are by no means conflatable and can easily be antagonistic to each other. Third, although I by no means am a fan of statistics or other quantitative methods, there is no reason to single it out as the big bad wolf of sociology. These are after all only *methods* and can be useful to bring a point across or identify problems, phenomena or solutions. It is most certainly not the only form of decontextualizing practice! All sociology (as an objectifying practice) shares this characteristic to some extent (even historical sociology and anthropology). Ziggy Fish Sociology, Princeton U. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue May 14 14:22:16 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: Melissa R Herman Subject: soc of ed call for papers To: sea-l@lmrinet.education.ucsb.edu, TEACHSOC@MAPLE.LEMOYNE.EDU, soced@lists.Stanford.EDU Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 14:19:13 -0700 (PDT) Call for papers: The Sociology of Education Association is holding its annual conference on February 21-23, 1997, in Monterey, California. The theme is "Stratification of Educational Opportunities in an Era of Waning Affirmative Action." Keynote speakers include Troy Duster of the University of California at Berkeley and Gary Orfield of Harvard University. We invite presentations that will advance research in the sociology of education, particularly with respect to the social effects of changes in the conceptualization and implementation of affirmative action in educational institutions. We are interested in issues of faculty as well as student stratification, at the primary and secondary as well as college and university levels. We especially welcome papers that address both structural and institutional factors in the stratification of educational opportunities. Deadline for abstract submissions is September 15, 1996. Contact: Melissa Herman, Stanford University, Sociology Department, Building 120, Stanford, CA, 94305-2047 (415) 723-1692; fax (415) 725 6471; manoki@leland.stanford.edu, or Russell Rumberger, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, (805) 893-3385; fax (805) 893-7264; russ@education.ucsb.edu From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 31 09:41:12 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: Byrad.Yyelland@usask.ca 31 May 1996 10:35:45 -0600 (CST) Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 10:35:45 -0600 (CST) Subject: incorrect divorce statistic To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Hello all, I printed out the brief article discussing Lenore Weitzman's error regarding divorce statistics but my printer jammed-up and I've deleted the initial discussion. Could someone please respond with a repeat of that information? This information is a MUST for some of my lectures. Thanks in advance, Byrad Yyelland Dept of Sociology St. Thomas More College Saskatoon, Sask. email: Yyelland.B@usask.ca From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri May 31 11:06:22 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 11:02:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Karen Lee To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Subject: unsub